The sun glanced off of Daryl's chestnut colored hair, giving it an almost angelic shine, as he shoved the yellow tipped arrow through an anonymous walker's dead brain. His arm and shoulder muscles, toned from many years of hard work and fighting to survive, flexed and stretched under his sun-browned skin, and his angel wing vest fluttered around his hips with his movement. Simply put he was walking sex.
Rick swallowed roughly, the saliva catching on his Adam's Apple, and nearly choking him. He coughed quite violently, eliciting an amused look from Daryl. Rick turned away from the other man quickly, pounding on his chest as he proceeded to hack up a lung. He could hear Daryl chuckle behind him along with the squish of another walker's brain being turned to mush, and his cheeks grew slightly pink with embarrassment.
Rick and Daryl had gone out on a supply run earlier that morning, and had been hindered by a small group of about six walkers on the way to the closest warehouse, which was actually about five miles from the prison. Not very far by car, unless of course you had to drive cautiously, and therefore slowly, so as not to attract walkers; worse yet when you did manage to draw in walkers and had to pick them off for your own safety. Daryl may not have minded stabbing out a corpse's face repeatedly, but after a while it made Rick feel somewhat ill.
"What'd Glenn say his gal needed?" Daryl spoke without looking at Rick, grunting as he dragged one of the now completely lifeless bodies toward the shoulder of the road.
Maggie had become quite sick during the night, vomiting up everything she'd eaten during the day, and running a low, non-walker related fever. Glenn worried that she had somehow managed to contract the flu, even though that seemed unlikely considering the fact that there was no one to get that particular virus from at the prison or on supply runs. Stranger things had happened, though, so Rick and Daryl had stepped up to take their place; out of everyone at that prison they were the most likely to be able to get in and out of the warehouse without much trouble.
"Any kind of medicine for the flu, if we could even find such a thing anymore, and a can of chicken noodle soup. Pretty sure the best we'll find is some cold remedy, though, and probably a package of regular old noodles, without the chicken or the soup. I feel bad for the kid. I really hope this sickness doesn't get much worse; the last thing I need is for Judith or Carl to suddenly catch it, too." Rick shook his head, trying to stop himself from babbling. He wasn't really prone to talking, but somehow when he got nervous he talked a little too much; the weird thing was that he only seemed to get nervous around Daryl.
Daryl was a great friend, a better friend than Shane, for sure, and he made for an excellent second-in-command, though that wasn't really what was needed nowadays; for some reason that Rick couldn't quite pinpoint, however, he felt eternally embarrassed around the laid-back redneck.
"A'right." Daryl nodded absentmindedly to himself as he pulled another body out of the way of their car's path. He was always doing that, pretending nonchalance, even though he heard and saw everything that went on around him. At least he never said anything that might hurt someone else, or embarrass them in any way; he was kind like that. He kept to himself, and came when he was needed, which he frequently was.
The two men cleared the rest of the bodies from the road in silence, Rick occasionally stealing glances at Daryl when he thought the other man wasn't looking, and Daryl pretending he didn't notice Rick doing so. The quiet was amicable, like nothing needed to be said, but there was something lingering in the stillness, something that remained unsaid, and would probably continue to be so.
Rick brushed his hands on his trousers, trying to wipe away the feeling of pliable flesh and decay from his palms. Daryl spit on his palms and rubbed them together, ignoring the odd look that Rick gave him, before hopping back in the car and slamming the passenger door. Rick turned in a slow circle, taking in every angle and making sure there were no other walkers nearby, before climbing into the driver's seat and continuing down the road.